In the End
by ArgentNoelle
Summary: A Game of Shadows: AU "In the end, he thought he should have known. Hadn't it been leading up to this? Hadn't it been obvious? Of course it was. It was so obvious that everyone could see it but Sherlock Holmes."
1. Interlude

**A/N:** this part has been published on its own, as _Interlude_, as well as here, but the others haven't. Also, I wrote all of these at around the same time after I watched the movie.

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Part 1

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Interlude

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They were on the boat to France. Strange, that the sky was so blue. As if there wasn't a care to be had in the world. Watson didn't yet feel the weight that made him silent. If he had anything to do with it, Watson wouldn't ever, not for as long as possible. He was still mad for him pushing Mary off the train (he didn't _really_ think Holmes would throw her off and not have anyone to rescue her? Well, perhaps it was justified. He had done everything to stop his friend getting married.) He sighed. The sky was blue and it was unnaturally calm. He didn't like calm. Calm was something he could never have, it was a cruel joke now that as they fled across the channel to begin the battle the world was so at peace.

Watson tried to start a conversation, but he ignored it. He got off the bench and walked to the edge of the boat. He looked one more time at the handkerchief in his hand, then let it fall away into the water. It was the most he could do for Irene now.

He looked up at the sky. All ties were broken now. There was nothing to regret. The battle would soon begin.

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**More Important Note of Continuity:** everything takes place during the movie, and is in order, but they may not all take place in the same universe. Some of them may be AU, some of them won't, and what takes place in one of the stories doesn't really make any difference in what takes place in another.

**Edited Note of Continuity:** Or, you can just read it like it's one big story and all belongs in the same universe because it actually might read a bit better that way...


	2. Drabble

Part 2

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Drabble

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He is on a boat. Soon he will be gone. In a moment, they will travel along the mountains, they will meet people and find people, they will watch deaths and almost die themselves, and in the end he will die.

He does not know that now however. He stands at the edge of the boat, thinking of a death other than his own, of the woman in the cherry-red dress. The sky is blue and warm, the waves small. His friend sits on the bench behind him.

They do not know what will happen, and perhaps that is kind.

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	3. Madness

Part 3

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There was something about the mountains. They were so old, and green, beautiful, so unbearably beautiful that to look at them with your mind open for any amount of time would drive you mad, a strange, wild madness. And is that even a surprise? After all, faeries are mad.

In the night the gypsies would open their minds and get drunk on the beauty, and dance throughout the night. He warned his friend, but didn't stop him from joining the others, because there had been too much tragedy, and he wanted his friend to forget it, if only for a little while.

He didn't dance, but the joyous madness seeped into his veins, and he smiled the way he hadn't smiled for years, not since he had been innocent of the world.

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	4. Heaven

This story was inspired by a similar one I read once, with the same basic plot, that is, when Holmes was 'dead' on the train, he saw Irene. I don't remember who wrote it or what it was called but I thought it was an interesting idea.

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Part 4

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Heaven

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He was dead. Shouldn't that worry him? And yet he really couldn't be bothered. For once, his mind was at rest, and he couldn't read the people around him. He couldn't care less. His curse was gone. Now he looked at the woman next to him, and all he saw was someone he had thought he would never see again.

"Irene," he said, and she smiled at him in that way she had, and suddenly the question he had meant to ask her flew out of his mind. He was young again (but when had he ever been old?) and there was nothing he had to worry about, no one he had to save. (But when had he had to save people?) And there was no darkness in his mind (but what was darkness?) or the world.

And he finally managed to say the words he had never been able to say in life, to feel the feelings that he hadn't allowed himself to feel, for fear of being broken again. (But what was brokenness?) And his mind was filled with peace and joy, and they walked through the park and her dress was cherry red.

If this was heaven, (but what else was there?) This was what he had been searching for his whole life, he knew. And he smiled, and she smiled back, and everyone else was at peace too, and he wrapped his arms around her, and looked into her eyes, and she laughed and pulled away, eyes dancing. "So _now_ you change your mind, now that we're both dead? Don't you think you're a little late?"

"There is nothing I regret more than letting you die," he says hoarsely.

"Holmes," she whispers, coming closer to him. "Sherlock. You did not _let me_ die. It was my own fault and my own folly. You have never owned me."

"I know," he says frankly, and at once there is nothing funnier, and they can't help but laugh at the expression on the other's face.

And they will spend eternity together.

But then, in the middle of some story, some day in the middle of this beautiful paradise, he feels something pulling him back. And it _hurts_. All of a sudden he can remember pain, and fear, and madness, despair and black depression, uncertainty and anger and helplessness. He looks around for Irene, and she is there, (she had been off visiting a friend but she could feel his pain, so out of place here, and came to his aid, the way he hadn't been able to come to hers).

"What is happening?" he asks, and his mind is hungry again, his enemy, calculating and noticing and he couldn't turn it off, and it tells him with dispassionate accuracy that he is going back _there_, to the cold, hard world and it must be Watson and why couldn't he leave well enough alone?

And she kneels down with him, holds his hands, and looks into his eyes. "I'll be waiting," she whispers into his ear, and he can smell a hint of her scent even through the darkness.

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	5. In the End

_[this takes place between the train and the final confrontation at the falls, which wasn't in the movie.]_

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Part 5

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In the End

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In the end, he thought he should have known. Hadn't it been leading up to this? Hadn't it been obvious? Of course it was. It was so obvious that everyone could see it but Sherlock Holmes. But he was still young at heart, and arrogant, and why hadn't he listened to Watson after he'd died in the train and just _gone home_? Watson had seen it, but he was too loyal and too trusting, trusting that Holmes would find some way to cheat his way out. They just couldn't take life seriously, could they? But then, what was the fun in that?

Mycroft had seen it, but he hadn't known what it would lead to. He was so obsessed with the forest that he couldn't see the trees.

He should never have trusted Mycroft.

Irene would have told him at once, but she was dead.

The gypsy woman? How could she know? She was a bit player in this strange play.

Mary had known. She always knew. Maybe Watson had made a good choice with her after all.

Moriarty had known, though not the whole picture, because he had underestimated Sherlock Holmes.

And wasn't this just another war?

And like all wars, it would end with death.

So he told Watson everything was all right and pretended there was nothing wrong in the world and all the while, they got closer to the man who had engineered it all.

He only hoped they would survive.

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	6. Twist of Fate

Part 6

Twist of Fate

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They played their game of 'chess', neither knowing they were out of options; neither knowing this would be their final confrontation. Holmes hid his mild worry (not for him, but for Watson, who was down in the party below, trying to find an assassin—he really shouldn't have left him behind but that was the way it had to be) under a mask of nonchalance, because that was how Moriarty got his power—from manipulating others. It was a test, of course. He knew that. It had been a test from the very beginning. Moriarty was testing him, seeing if he was a worthy adversary. Moriarty thought this was only the beginning, but Holmes didn't like being played with, and no matter how much he might say otherwise, he was not enamored with the idea of having an archenemy. Not when that man could hurt the only people he cared about. No, he was fine without Moriarty, Moriarty just wasn't fine without him. He seemed to think that Holmes liked this sort of thing, that he would ignore the danger just so he could play a game with someone of his own intelligence. Yes, Moriarty was a cat, and he was a mouse. Perhaps he did give the idea that he would do anything to stop being bored, but that…that was his problem, that was the darkness he fell into when there was nothing to occupy his mind, that was something Moriarty could stave off, but so could a hundred other cases that didn't threaten Watson, that didn't kill Irene.

Yes. In the privacy of his own mind Holmes could admit there was something wrong with him that he'd never been able to fix. But Watson was good, and shining, and perfect. He was the heart to Holmes' brain. And Irene…she was special. And Moriarty had killed her. Did he think he didn't know who would be next?

No, Holmes would play the game, but he would play by his own rules.

–In other words, he would cheat.

He was good at cheating, he had made a living of cheating, and Death was his favourite opponent to slip away from, smiling as he slipped through its eager fingers once again. He and Death were old enemies, and Death was a better enemy than Moriarty could ever be.

Death played by the rules.

Moriarty didn't know, yet, that this was the end for him. And perhaps he was more right than Holmes would admit, for he couldn't resist taunting the man with the knowledge that he had no options left. Look in your book. Don't you see? Mary helped in the end. You are ruined.

And now, it wasn't a game anymore. He put his hand in his pocket for reassurance—but it wasn't there. The 'personal oxygen supply' he had filched from Mycroft was simply not there. Well, that went _that_ plan. And for the first time in his life, Sherlock Holmes was direly in need of a Plan B.

The problem was, Plan B was something he'd really rather not consider.

He started to play out the resulting confrontation. He had his wound of course, which he'd almost died from (_would_ have died from, if it wasn't for Watson and a joke gift) but Moriarty was more the thinking type, he might have a chance…

Ah. So he'd finally met his match. Yes, they could both see the future, it unfolded in their heads, as real as if it were happening now, in slow motion and extra-sharp clarity. And they watched as Moriarty got the better of him, and pushed him off the falls.

"Unless…"

Unless. Yes, that was it, wasn't it? This was the end. And he'd just been thinking about cheating Death, hadn't he?

He supposed it made sense. If you gambled, someday you were going to lose.

And the only reason it would work was that Moriarty would not be expecting it, because they both loved themselves too much to die, didn't they? And hadn't he been planning on giving a cheery wave as he slipped by Death's door? Only now it was for real. And perhaps, if he somehow made it into heaven, Irene would be there, because she didn't deserve hell, no matter what she'd done. She was too young, too innocent, to die. Alone.

He pulled Moriarty to him, and the man didn't resist, because this didn't make sense, it went against the fundamental rules of the world, and he knew he had only that split second of uncertainty in which to act.

He was afraid.

And then Watson came…

Too late. But it wasn't Watson's fault, and he hoped he wouldn't blame himself. No, it was _his_ fault, him and the game he played with fate.

And their eyes met.

Of course Watson knew what was happening at once. He had always been able to read him the way no one else in the world could, and he saw the whole story in his eyes.

Strangely, that was what gave him the courage to do it, seeing Watson's eyes.

There was no time for goodbyes.

He let himself fall.

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-finis-

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End file.
